The President's Priorities

Lawrence H. Summers steps into the University presidency nearly a decade removed from his last direct contact with Harvard students. A lot has changed since he left for Washington in 1993, and his learning curve will be steep as he assesses the current state of the University and begins to formulate the priorities for his term. To help him do that, at least in regards to undergraduate life, the Undergraduate Council recently authored a letter to our next president detailing what it believed were a few of the College's most pressing needs. Specifically, the council outlined three broad and far-reaching actions the president could take to effect the most positive change in undergraduate life. First, Summers should support the current drive to increase the size of the Faculty. Second, he should seek to increase the physical space available to undergraduate student groups and for residential life. Finally, he should take an active role in enlarging the degree to which students are involved in University decision-making. Each of these broader actions will cut across many different specific student concerns and are ways Summers can shape the College for the better.

Any discussion of top priorities within the College must focus foremost on academics. Currently, the dearth of meaningful student-faculty interaction is the most pressing concern within this sphere. For example, there are simply not enough teaching resources available to provide each first-year student with a meaningful small-group instructional setting through the Freshman Seminar program. Instead, the least experienced students among us are frequently plunged into giant, anonymous, inflexible lecture courses within the Core Program. Even the academic departments do not always provide respite from this disconnectedness. Too often, students do not have departmental faculty advisors to help shape their academic growth, nor are their Houses' Senior Common Rooms the vibrant communities they once were. We are left yearning for intellectual mentors to guide us.

Each of these specific problems reflects a lack of faculty resources to offer the services students rightly expect from the College. The single most important effort the University president could make to improve the academic life of undergraduates is to press for the hiring of a substantial number of new faculty members. These new professors would provide faculty resources to significantly improve academic life for undergraduates.

Harvard students are, however, more than just intellectuals. More than 250 of our student groups create a lively campus community with a dizzying array of activities and interests. Every weekend, several performing arts groups showcase their talents on the stages throughout campus. Still other students choose to spend their free time among friends within their Houses. Each of these different areas of campus life--student groups, performing arts and House life--has expanded in recent years, straining the physical resources available to students. Simply put, the College needs more space. Some sort of a student center would greatly increase the amount of office and meeting space available to extracurricular groups. Performing arts groups are unique among student groups in that their demands are often for the same large spaces on campus for performances and rehearsals. It is important that their needs continue to be met even with the potential loss of the Agassiz Theatre and the Reiman Dance Center as undergraduate performance spaces.

Moreover, students are not free from crowding even when they go home at night. Many of the Houses are trying to accommodate far more students than they were designed to. As a result, less space is available for faculty members and student groups to be integrated into the residential community, negatively impacting House life. Our next president must explore options for easing crowding, possibly by constructing a new undergraduate House. Whether participating in their students groups or studying in their rooms, College students feel increasingly claustrophobic. There is a pressing need for room to grow.

Finally, though students are the heart of this University, they often feel excluded from being full participants in decision-making. It is telling, for instance, that no students were included in the presidential search committee that selected Summers to lead Harvard. Students feel disconnected from the centers of power within the University and wonder if their interests are always represented during long-range planning. Even veteran members of the council often feel flummoxed by what they see as the passing of responsibility by College administrators. To help address this lack of integration between students and administrators, Summers should feel obligated to become an active member of the student community. He certainly should always seek out the student perspective when making decisions, formally wherever possible and informally virtually every time.

We have asked Summers three important things: Bring us more teachers so that we may have more small-group instructional settings; find us the physical space our student groups and our Houses need to grow; include us at the table when the University makes decisions. We don't expect magic wands and miracles, but if he can commit to these three goals, he will make a dramatic impact on the lives of Harvard undergraduates. And if he follows through with them, he will leave Harvard in a better position than he found it.

Todd E. Plants '01 is a history concentrator in Eliot House. He is a member of the Undergraduate Council.